A day after the ruling BJP announced its first list of 67 candidates for the October 5 Haryana assembly polls, the party faced rebellion with minister Ranjit Singh Chautala and MLA Lakshman Dass Napa who were denied ticket quitting the party. Energy and Jails Minister Ranjit Chautala (79), son of former deputy prime minister Devi Lal, said he took a decision after a meeting with his supporters and will now enter the fray as an Independent.
Napa quit the party after being denied ticket while former minister Karan Dev Kamboj also stepped down as state BJP’s OBC Morcha chief after party ignored his candidature. The rebel trouble for BJP started shortly after it came out with the first list of candidates as it left many sulking.
After quitting the party, Napa met former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda at his residence in the national capital and later said he will be joining the Congress along with his supporters. Ranjit Chautala called a meeting of his supporters after the party ignored his candidature from Rania segment in Sirsa district.
“I took the decision after consulting my supporters,” he said when asked about his move. “I had good relations with them (BJP). They gave me Lok Sabha ticket (from Hisar, which he fought unsuccessfully). But don’t know on whose advice they have acted. I will say anyone who has given them this advice has caused damage to the party,” Chautala said.
“I am Chaudhary Devi Lal’s son. I have some stature… I have decided to contest as an Independent,” he said, while adding he has resigned as minister and quit the BJP. Chautala was hoping to contest from Rania seat but the BJP fielded Shishpal Kamboj instead. Ranjit had resigned as Independent MLA from Rania ahead of the Lok Sabha polls to join the BJP and fought the Hisar parliamentary seat unsuccessfully.
Napa, sitting MLA from Ratia reserve constituency in Fatehabad district, said he served his constituency with full dedication and undertook development works. He said he does not know why the party denied him re-nomination from the assembly segment. Napa said he had met Hooda Thursday morning. “I am joining Congress.”
In another jolt to the BJP after it put out the first list of candidates, former minister Karan Dev Kamboj said he has resigned as state president of Haryana BJP’s OBC Morcha and from all party posts he held. Kamboj, who was also a ticket hopeful but did not get it, said he had been serving the party over the years with dedication.
“Perhaps the BJP does not need loyalists anymore,” he said, adding the party is rewarding leaders with tickets who joined a day before while ignoring those who served it for years. Napa, in a letter to state party chief Mohan Lal Badoli shortly after the BJP put out the first list of 67 candidates for the polls, said he was resigning from the party’s primary membership.
A few sitting legislators, including minister Sanjay Singh and former minister Sandeep Singh, do not figure in the first list of BJP candidates From Ratia, the party has fielded former Sirsa MP Sunita Duggal. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Duggal was denied re-nomination from the Sirsa parliamentary constituency after former Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar, who had joined BJP ahead of the LS polls, was given the ticket. Tanwar, however, lost to Congress veteran Kumari Selja.
Former Haryana minister and senior BJP leader Kavita Jain, a ticket hopeful from Sonipat, was also sulking after party fielded Nikhil Madan from the constituency. Addressing her supporters in Sonipat, she turned emotional, and said she had always worked as a dedicated soldier for her party and her candidature should have been considered.
In its first list released on Wednesday, the BJP fielded Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, who is the sitting MLA from Karnal, from the Ladwa seat, and rewarded several recent entrants to the party with poll tickets. The BJP is aiming for a hat-trick in Haryana but faces tough challenge from a resurgent Congress which is looking to cash in on the anti-incumbency factor.
Saini is the BJP’s chief ministerial face for the assembly polls. The counting of votes for the elections to the 90-member assembly will take place on October 8.